The apartment complex where El Paso County Sheriff’s Deputy Micah Flick was killed during an attempted auto-theft arrest is at the heart of a city neighborhood most afflicted by motor vehicle thefts in 2016, a Gazette analysis of the latest full year for which census data was available.

Murray Hill Apartments, at Murray Boulevard and Galley Road, is in census tract 60, the boundaries of which stretch from Academy Boulevard east to Babcock Road, and from East Platte Avenue north to Palmer Park Boulevard. It’s where 60 of the city’s 1,828 motor vehicle thefts in 2016 happened, tying for highest in the city with tract 21.02, which intersects in the southeast at Pikes Peak Avenue and Chelton Road.

Overall, there was a 23 percent jump in car theft in 2016 from 2015, leading to a more robust effort by the Beat Auto Theft Through Law Enforcement, or BATTLE, task force. The group of officers was designed to reduce thefts, catch prolific offenders and eliminate crime rings. Funding for the task force doubled to $1.2 million that year, increasing again this year to $1.4 million, grant applications show.

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About Lockdown

Coloradans Against Auto Theft is a coalition of law enforcement agencies, insurance partners, LoJack and AAA Colorado. CAAT and the state auto theft task force efforts are funded in part by the Colorado Auto Theft Prevention Authority (CATPA). CAAT was created to promote the cumulative statewide efforts in the prevention of auto theft.